Patsos’ postgame quotes after the Iona loss

His opening statement: “Yeah, it was a tough game. You know, college basketball is a lot about emotion and energy. I thought they had better emotion and energy for 40 minutes. There was a time when we made a run. I was really proud of Ryan Oliver. He doesn’t get a lot of chances early, and he’s taken advantage. Maurice White, who wasn’t playing well, gave us a lot to go 5 for 7.”

“There’s certain times you can’t have turnovers. Twice I said, Just be solid with the basketball. It’s my fault. I’m the coach … We just threw the ball out of bounds, and you can’t do that against a good team. They made shots. You give up 50 percent from the 3. You can blame the coach. It’s my fault. I’m the coach. But when you give up 50 percent from the 3, at some point, you have to take responsibility for that. I was a little worried this year about the young guys taking responsibility … These guys have to be accountable for the 32 games they play. I didn’t think we were ready to play today, and I thought we were going to be ready to play, so that’s my fault as a head coach.”

On Siena defending the 3-pointer: “We did OK in the second half, but we’re down 3, and their guy (A.J. English) who was on fire catches the ball, and he lets it go, and we’re a little late putting our hand up. The problem is, it’s just like the Canisius game, you let guys get early, then you pay the price later. That’s on us a team and me as a coach.”

On Iona’s Sean Armand, who didn’t make a 3 in his two previous games: “We talked about it. We talked about, hey, he’s going to come in and get his shots. … I said, we’ve won a few in a row, and we’ve got (Iona’s) attention and we really have to be ready tomorrow. I thought (the loss) started in practice, and I accept that as a coach. I told you, it’s my fault. Then when you come out and say, Armand hasn’t scored, you really have to worry about him, and all of a sudden he’s wide open a couple of times, if you don’t know who Sean Armand is, I surely do.”

On Marquis Wright and Brett Bisping fouling out: “Yeah, it happens. They were playing hard. … If we got the missed rebound, Marquis doesn’t foul out (with 7:12 to play). They missed, we had several chances, and instead I saw guys backing out of there, and then they got a rebound. Referees did a good job … When you have three fouls and you pick up your fourth, and I run a guy to the table, and we say, you have four fouls, just take it easy, and then you foul out, that’s my fault.”

On whether his second-half technical spurred the team: “Yeah, I just wished they played better because we only play 32 games and we were picked 10th, they were picked second and we’re playing at home in front of 6,000 loyal fans.”

3 Responses

Does anyone know if the English kid(#5-29 pts.) from Iona is the son or nephew or grandson of NBA hall of famer Alex English?

They had a 66-62 lead when Wright fouled out. At that point, we took the air out of the ball; losing our offensive aggressiveness and running the shot clock down hoping the game would end right then and there so yes, Coach does have to take the responsibility for that.

He should have encouraged Hymes, Poole, and White to keep going to the hoop and pushing the ball up the floor and instead they take the air out of the ball and lose Hymes driving capabilities and what defensive breakdowns he causes when he does that in transition rather than giving Iona all the time in the world to set up a defense and we saw what happens when this team takes the air out of the ball.

Great game overall and great fan noise as it sounded the loudest its been since the McCaffrey years.

I like Jimmy not throwing everybody under the bus and his willingness to take responsibility himself for everyone’s shortcomings but jeesh…if he could just blame himself a little LESS often, it would have more of an impact. The team and the coach are doing a good job. When you get accustom to losing, it can take some time to learn to win consistently. Keep up the good work.

English’s father – A.J. (Albert Jay) II – was an All-American at Virginia Union University and played two seasons with the Washington Bullets from 1990-1992 where he averaged just under 10.0 points per game.